Page 6 of The Eighth Isle

“No.” I shook my head as I tried to keep afloat, not even suspecting that this could be the Whispering Woods, eventhough this darkness was the same—because the Woods was huge, and this place was tiny in comparison.

This was the Eighth Isle, and Syra had thrown us out of it. She’d picked us up with her magic and somehow thrown us out of the darkness and into the ocean—but Grey was not here with me.

A scream built up inside me, ready to tear the whole fucking world apart. She threw us out, but she kept Grey in there.

She kept Grey in that fucking darkness…

The darkness that was fading away.

Water in my mouth because my jaw fell open. The thick cloud of darkness that concealed the Eighth Isle was fading right in front of my eyes, and I didn’t know what the hell to make of it. It disappeared little by little, showing me more of the dead trees and the ruins and the tomb mountain made out of rocks—but that wasn’t all.

Even Genevieve stopped screaming when we saw Syra standing at the very top of the mountain—the same place I’d seen Grey in the eighth mirror back at the castle. She was standing at the top, all alone, her arms spread wide and her eyes turned to the sky, and when the darkness faded away completely, the trees began to change, too.

The black barks turned brown, and the broken branches grew thick, and the dead leaves became big and shiny and green. I couldn’t see animals anywhere, but the surrounding woods of the tomb mountain grew so fast and so big and so green I thought the trees might reach the sky before my next breath.

But Syra wasn’t done.

The whole world shook when she raised her arms even higher. The watervibrated,and before I knew it, the Isle moved.

The fucking Isle moved, and it was rising as if something was pulling it toward the sky.

It grew bigger and greener by the second, and it didn’t stop until it was maybe half the size of the Whispering Woods.

I couldn’t think well enough about anything other than the fact that that siren had pulled the entire Isle out of the ocean by simply raising her arms.

Syra hadhealedthe entire piece of land as if it had never been sick to begin with. She had Grey,myGrey, somewhere in that mountain, and the water that was spilling, giving way for the Isle climbing on the surface, was pushing me farther and farther away.

I couldn’t get to him. Once more, we were apart, and I couldn’t fucking get to Grey.

My magic burned under my skin, rivaling that bad feeling that had settled around my flesh. It raged because it knew it couldn’t do anything now.

Syra was awake. Grey was with her. I was alone again.

My eyes closed and I let go—so what if I drowned? I wished I would.

I wished I never woke up again.

But as I slipped under the surface, still holding my breath on instinct, a hand closed around my arm, pulling me back up.

My eyes closed and unconsciousness took me.

Three

Grey Evernight

So much magichung in the air. If I’d needed to breathe to survive, I’d have choked a long time ago.

Pushing myself up was torture—my own body seemed to be working against me, trying to keep me down, but I had to get up. I had to see where Fall was, figure out how to get her out of the tomb mountain because we were all doomed. Syra was awake and Sedelis was dead, and the Seven Isles were going to disappear off the face of the Earth any second now.

Get up!

A rush of energy went through me at the memory of Fall’s face, how scared she’d been, how hopeless. I had to get her out of the Seven Isles right now if I was going to make sure she was safe—and Iwould.

The ground groaned and shook, threatening to make me lose the little balance I’d gathered in the past few seconds, but I pushed myself up to my knees anyway.

I pushed myself up and I looked around, sure I’d find the inside of the tomb mountain exactly as I’d left it—the turquoisepool, the uneven ground and walls, the Great White frozen midair as he was about to squash Sedelis.

Instead I found something very, very different.

---